But most of all, Harriet Hutchinson forbade her body to dictate to her soul when Miss Annie hung whimpering about her with frantic persistence of pity. Never in all their years together had Miss Harriet shown such tenderness to Annie as now, when the poor old child's mere presence was maddening to her. For Annie could think of nothing but the pain which could not be hidden, and her incessant entreaty was that it should be stopped. "Wouldn't you rather be dead, sister?" "Yes, Annie." "Well, then, be dead." "I can't, Annie. Now let us talk of something else. Tell me what the black hen did when the speckled hen stole her nest." Annie joyously told her story, as she had told it dozens of times before; while Harriet Hutchinson turned her face to the wall. Annie sat on her heels on the floor beside the bed, rocking back and forth, and talking: "And so the speckled hen flew off. Sister, I'll get you your big bottle?" No answer. "Sister, don't you want to smell the bottle?" "No, Annie. No--no--_no_! Oh, Annie, don't you want to go and see your chickens?" "Why not?" "Because it wouldn't be right, Annie." "Why wouldn't it be right, sister?" "Because," said Harriet Hutchinson--"because I suppose that's one of the things that would 'make it harder for those that stand by.'" "I don't understand," poor old Annie said, timidly. "Well, Annie, that's the only reason I know of. Oh, Annie, Annie! it is the only reason there is; it is the root of its being wrong." ... And then the long moan. When Miss Annie heard that sound she shivered all over; it was the elemental protest of the flesh, which cannot understand the regal and unconquered soul. Those were hard days for Willy King, what with his affection and his sympathy and his daily struggles with Miss Annie; "for she is frantic," he told Dr. Lavendar. They were walking up the hill together in the late afternoon. Miss Harriet had sent for the old man, on whom now she leaned even more than on William King, for Dr. Lavendar gave her granite words instead of Willy's tenderer sympathy. "She insists that I shall give Miss Harriet something--'stuff out of Harriet's bottle,' she says. I suppose she means chloroform. I wish to God I could." "God will do His own work, William." "Yes, sir; but it's such a waste--this courage that fairly breaks our hearts." "Waste! William, what are you talking about? We are every one of us richer for it. I told her so yesterday." "Well," said William King, thoughtfully, "perhaps so; in this case we are richer, I admit. But suppose it were a baby that was suffering--or a dog? Only, we wouldn't let the dog suffer. Dr. Lavendar, one of these days--you and I won't live to see it, but one of these days--" "There is Miss Annie now," said Dr. Lavendar. "Why--look at her!"